


Mild as Milk Tea

by paralleltales



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anorexia, Artist!Yuta, Birthday Cake, Birthday Fluff, Cuddles, Eating Disorders, Fluff and Angst, Freeform, M/M, model!winwin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 13:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paralleltales/pseuds/paralleltales
Summary: Sicheng is tired of being stressed over things that are normal for other people, and Yuta just wants him to have an extra special birthday.AKA Sicheng is hurting and Yuta tries to help in his own little ways.





	Mild as Milk Tea

**Author's Note:**

> for my beautiful birthday boy, winko ♥️
> 
> please don’t use this fic (or any of my other fics!!) as trigger material (i understand how tempting it is but stay safe <3)

Sicheng’s life was a blur of photoshoots and fittings, of being praised and poked at like a cut of meat. And it had got to him.

Badly.

One of the things that he’d loved about Yuta right from the moment they’d gone on that fateful tinder date was how he saw his looks as a simple bonus- not a trait that defined him. He was so used to people touching him and prodding at him as they pleased and saying their immediate thoughts, cruel as they could be, as if he wasn’t there. But not Yuta. Never, ever, ever, Yuta. Despite the fact that he was a photographer, the older boy seemed to look at him through a rose tinted lens.

Never seeing how his eyelids sometimes puffed up and the crease disappeared (“You get two sets of eyes for the price of one!” “You’re a fucking moron.”) or his -now removed- snaggletooth that’d been the source of a painful amount of bullying when he was younger (“I’m actually so pissed- you looked like a cat boy! It was cute!” “I never want to hear that out of your mouth again.”) or that he had intense bow legs that made it look like he was constantly flexing backwards and made posing nearly impossible. (“You have really pretty legs” “I really don-” “You could kick me and I’d honest to God cry out of happiness.”)

But Yuta, with his shining smile and showers of affection had arrived in his life just a little too late. At that point, he’d already been too convinced by his mind for anything to get through to him.

Every second he was in front of a camera, his mind just screamed _You aren’t worth it No one wants to look at you You’re taking up too much space Everyone’s disappointed in you The photographer is mad that he got you for this campaign You can’t do anything right you fucking-_

“And that’s it! You did great, kid.” Johnny smiled at him warmly, and he lit up for a second. _It’s a pity_ , was what he- or ‘it’- said. _When you’re gonna leave they’re gonna photoshop your pics to hell and back._

It’s not a big deal, he thought to himself while wiping off some orange lipstick, there’s a simple fix. The words that’d been ringing in his head from the day he’d heard them, when he was first signed to SM’s modelling agency. He’d just signed the contract, and was having his measurements taken- they’d wanted to start booking him for jobs straight away. There was just one issue.

“You know,” said an assistant while digging a measuring tape into his waist. “You’re stunning, but if you _really_ wanted to hit it big, you could stand to lose a couple of kilos.”

He remembered just blinking hard while staring at the man. He was used to concerned friends and family telling him to eat more, that he wasn’t healthy, but that was just how he was built. To hear someone say otherwise was an intense shock. That shock eventually led to an obsession that he just couldn’t let go of.

Every number had to be lower- how many calories he ate, how much he weighed, the size of his jeans. It was practically a high for him.

He had a distinct memory of trying to explain it to Kun once, when they were watching terrible movies at three in the morning and semi-cuddling. All he was met with was a look of pity and a tight hug- no one seemed to understand just how intense the sense of achievement behind his actions.

After all, when he walked into the agency two weeks later and two kilos lighter, the reaction he got felt far better than what any of the foods he’d craved that week could’ve possibly tasted. The week after, it was one and a half- but still a noticeable enough difference to garner yet more praise. At some point, his mind had decided that ‘skinny’ and ‘happy’ were interchangeable words, and he’d gone along with it.

But now, it was making him miserable.

Sure, brands were in love with the fact that he had a twenty-inch waist and a thigh gap that you could stick another leg through- but he saw how people looked at him with a mixture of pity and revulsion. Saw how his boyfriend winced whenever they cuddled on his good days.

Today had started as a good day, and it was going downhill quickly.

He just whimpered a bit and dug his face into Yuta’s chest, his only shield.  
____________

It would’ve been a flat-out lie for Yuta to say that he thought his boyfriend was ok, when he so clearly wasn’t. But he _also_ didn’t believe that his sweetheart’s mental state was something for the rest of the world to comment on and theorise about.

Did people honestly think that neither of them would see the hundreds of gossip magazines diagnosing him with this and that? Or the constant comments under his posts and every picture telling him to eat a sandwich or check himself into a clinic. The worst comments were about what Sicheng enjoyed the most- his photoshoots and campaigns.

“So unhealthy is the new hot?” -Someone on Instagram after he’d become a Burberry ambassador eight months ago.  
“His legs are going to snap if he stands for too long…” -A comment on r/HighFashion about his Harper’s Bazaar shoot six months ago.  
“How long are we going to pretend that this guy isn’t literally anorexic?!” -a tweeted reply to his Vogue France cover two months ago.

Did the people saying those things not even think about how Sicheng would feel if he saw their words? And the worst of it was that Sicheng _did_ see their comments. He knew that he did- he’d seen them on his internet history and in his camera roll whenever he had to hold his phone. And yet he didn’t say a word.

Yuta was scared.

He knew that Sicheng was completely aware of what he was doing, and that he knew the consequences would be fatal. After all, he was a grown man. Most would’ve said that tough love would be the way to fix things, and under most circumstances Yuta would’ve agreed. But not this time. Anyone with eyes could tell that it wouldn’t work this time.

Sicheng was fragile. He was like glass- extremely strong under pressure, but one wrong move could shatter him. Sure, there was the physical side of it- (his hair falling out, the fact that he was always cold, his skin bruising awful shades of purple and red at the lightest tap) but he was also breaking emotionally. He rarely wanted to leave his bed, he held back tears at the slightest critique and snapped at any minor inconvenience. That was _not_ his Sicheng- it was something that’d taken over him. It was awful holding him at night, hearing him softly sob and being too overwhelmed to help him.

But enough of that- he had another mission at hand.

To find a low calorie, low carb birthday cake recipe that actually tasted like... cake. The search wasn’t going great. Ideally, he could’ve just focused on finding the most delicious recipe possible and not worry about what it was comprised of- but he didn’t want to risk Sicheng’s birthday becoming a stressful mess that ended with the bathroom door being locked for an hour. He’d rather have a cake that looked more like nougat that Sicheng could actually enjoy, rather than a gastronomical masterpiece that’d land his love in an anxiety attack.

So he grit his teeth and clicked the link labelled “keto milk tea cake”.

Which, by the way, ended up being a real bitch to make.

____________

Sicheng woke up, already in a terrible mood. He had not been looking forward to his birthday. He was twenty-one, cool. He could finally vote in some countries and he could drink in the US, that was somewhat exciting. Somewhat.

But birthdays involved drinking and people and cake- all things he was not in the mood for. He’d enjoyed being the centre of attention when he was younger, and tolerated it as he got older. But now, he’d rather die in a soggy ditch by himself than have everyone’s eyes on him.

And speaking of being alone- where had Yuta gone? They’d fallen asleep cuddling, and now he was nowhere to be found. He peeled of the duvet to look up, and as if on queue, Yuta opened the door. Even though he was half asleep and barely had his eyes open, he could see his boyfriend’s bright, cheesy smile from a mile away. It warmed his heart.

And then he looked down at the tray in Yuta’s hands.

It was a plate _heaped_ with french toast, covered in icing sugar and maple syrup and strawberries with whipped cream on the side. Everything had been perfectly cooked, and even the smell told him that the ingredients were probably expensive. Judging by how Yuta was beaming, this surprise was what he’d gotten up so early for. His entire being felt like it was radiating love, and Sicheng could feel his cheeks flushing.

But as he looked down at the tray, his heart started to race. The worst of it all wasn’t even the sugar or calories- it was the fact that he’d have to touch it. He sat there, Yuta’s eyes on him, contemplating how to approach the situation. Then Yuta chimed in.

“Open up the napkin.” His voice was assertive, yet soft.

The napkin had been held together with a Ryan sticker- cute. Inside was a delicate knife and fork set, and he silently thanked whatever higher power there was for his boyfriend’s perceptive nature. But next was the real challenge, and he was going to stall for as long as possible. As Yuta crawled into bed and wrapped his arms around his waist, he tried to casually wipe the sugar off the strawberry he’d picked up, but Yuta picked up on it.

“ _Babe_ ,” Yuta’s whining was a rare commodity. “The toast took forever! At least have a bite?”

Sicheng forced a smile and started cutting- he desperately didn’t want to eat it, but the prospect of hurting Yuta was far worse.

He was about halfway through one thin slice when he was a) too stuffed to continue (apparently stomachs _did_ actually shrink) and b) the feelings of guilt associated with eating crept back up on him and he was scared of bursting into tears.

“A little more?”  
“Do I have to?”  
“A strawberry, at least. With whipped cream.” Yuta pressed a delicate kiss to his cheek

Had strawberries always been that sweet?  
____________

After a day of shopping, taking pictures of each other, laughing their lungs out and being disgustingly sappy- the night was finally winding down and they had made their way back home.

“So, birthday boy- how’s your day been?” Yuta enjoyed acting goofy to get Sicheng to loosen up.  
“It’s been _o-kay_ ~” Sicheng playfully dragged out the final syllables.

“Okay? Okay?! I’m wounded!” Yuta made a scene of clutching his chest and falling to the floor. Sicheng simply rolled his eyes, knelt down and softly kissed his cheek.  
“It was amazing.”

Yuta smoothly stood up and wrapped an arm across Sicheng’s waist while guiding him to the kitchen. “I’ve got one last surprise.”

Sicheng glided into the kitchen and was greeted by a simple cake. It smelled almost of... tea? The frosting was smooth and pure white, and Sicheng was practically drooling.

But he was also so, so tired.

“Here!” Yuta handed him a slice.  
“No, thank you.” Sicheng was backing into the corridor, trying to get to their bedroom.  
“It’s your birthday, what’s a birthday without cake?”  
“It’s _my_ birthday- and _I_ say no cake.”  
“God- you’re being so difficult.” Yuta picked up a fork. “Just try some!” He tried to get Sicheng to open his mouth but the younger resisted.  
“No!” He practically snapped. In the process of snapping, he’d thrown the cake from the fork across Yuta’s face.

Instinctively, Yuta rubbed frosting across Sicheng’s coat in retaliation. What would’ve been an explosive argument ended up being a cake war that left the two in giggle fits.

Eventually, there was a single, perfect slice of cake left. And Sicheng’s tiredness overpowered the other voice in his head. He picked up a fork, walked over, and ate some as Yuta stared in shock.

“Yuta?”  
“Y-yes?” The older scrambled to get up.  
“Why the fuck is this cake _chewy_?”  
“For your information, it’s low calorie, low carb, keto milk tea cake.”  
“Jesus christ- you really do love me, huh?” Sicheng was blushing as a grin spread across Yuta’s face.

“Was there any ever doubt?”  
“You know, you always used to act like this sporty tough guy,” Sicheng wrapped the shorter boy up in his arms. “But you’re as mild as milk tea.”

Yuta’s response was a giggle and an eskimo kiss.

Was there a part of Sicheng’s mind that was yelling at him, telling him that he’d ruined his progress, that he was bloated and ugly and how he’d regret this all tomorrow? Fucking hell there was. But for now, he was more concerned with how quickly he and Yuta could get to the bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by how badly i want to bake this beautiful goddamn cake  
> https://youtu.be/7zYdVMl4TRc


End file.
